Periodicity-dependence of the ferroelectric properties in BiFeO3/SrTiO3 multiferroic superlattices

Artificial superlattices of (BiFeO3)m(SrTiO3)m (m= 1 to 10 unit cells) consisting of multiferroic BiFeO3 and insulating SrTiO3 layers were fabricated on (100)-oriented SrTiO3 substrates by pulsed laser ablation. The remnant polarization and leakage current behavior were studied varying the periodicity (8-80A) of the superlattice. The leakage current was reduced by few orders of magnitude on increase of periodicity compared to single layer BiFeO3 thin films. Reduced leakage and intrinsic polarization hysteresis was observed and was confirmed by PUND analysis for periodicities in the range 20-60A. The leakage current was observed to be dominated by space charge limited conductionComment: Submitted to Applied Physics Letter

Impact of Gig Economy and Emerging Challenges on Banking Sector – an Indian perspective

This paper explores the magnitude of changes that is happening in the Indian banking sector in terms of the technology used, human resource deployed and change in the customer experience. The emergence of gig workforce has made banks rework their strategy. Here, we will describe how Indian banking sector is battling legacy systems and trying to adopt to latest technologies. The gig economy which has been playing a major role in many other sectors have not made a significant impact in the banking industry. The paper discusses the reasons this and gives a first-hand perspective of how the banking sector is getting disrupted

Probing of local ferroelectricity in BiFeO3 thin films and (BiFeO3)m(SrTiO3)m superlattices

Ferroelectric BiFeO3 thin films and artificial superlattices of (BiFeO3)m(SrTiO3)m (m~ 1 to 10 unit cells) were fabricated on (001)-oriented SrTiO3 substrates by pulsed laser ablation. The variation of leakage current and macroscopic polarization with periodicity was studied. Piezo force microscopy studies revealed the presence of large ferroelectric domains in the case of BiFeO3 thin films while a size reduction in ferroelectric domains was observed in the case of superlattice structures. The results show that the modification of ferroelectric domains through superlattice, could provide an additional control on engineering the domain wall mediated functional properties.Comment: 14 pages, To be published in J. Mag. Mag Mater. proceedings of EMRS 200

Interfacial contribution to the dielectric response in semiconducting LaBiMn4/3Co2/3O6

Impedance measurements have been performed on a sintered polycrystalline sample of the perovskite LaBiMn4/3Co2/3O6. Colossal dielectric permittivity often is measured in this class of semiconducting materials as a result of extrinsic factors. Our results show that a large offset in the capacitance, measured on a series of samples with different thickness, is due to the interfacial polarization. This contribution then can be removed from the data, creating a general procedure for dielectric measurements in semiconducting samples.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figure

Career development of women in the hotel industry: An Overview

This paper focuses on factors affecting career progression of women in the hotel industry as discussed by researchers in different geographical locations in the world and to investigate whether women are indeed blocked in the process of advancing in their career. It is also focused to explore the mechanism adopted by the hospitality companies to mitigate the issue related to women’s career progression. An in-depth study was carried to by reviewing twenty-two articles related to the hotel industry and twenty-eight articles related to hospitality industry. It was revealed that specific factors are common to the industry irrespective of the geographical locations such as networking, gender discrimination, segregation, long and irregular working hours and work and family balance. However, factors like cultural barriers, taking risks on non-linear assignments and significance of finding a sponsor were limited to individual countries. Irrespective of the economic and social developments of the countries concerned covering America, Europe, Australia, Africa, Middle Eastern countries, Far East Asia and South Asian regions, the issue of lack of women leaders in the hotel industry has been a significant issue. The Glass ceiling effect on career development for women was widely discussed and confirmed the existence in many countries irrespective of legal frameworks of equal opportunities. Few uncommon issues were also publicised in the study in the USA commenting few challenges and barriers such as the importance of having a sponsor, making lateral moves with new opportunities and being a ‘”token” in a male-dominated executive table